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When The Trip debuted in 2010, it was a surprisingly endearing and authoritative hit, given the premise—two hours of watching British comedians Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon drive around eating food and doing impressions of Michael Caine. But the poster hints at the movie’s subtle profundity: Coogan gazing gloomily at the camera while Brydon laughs at the heavens, the pair looking for all the world like the inseparable Greek masks for comedy and tragedy. Coogan was the unhappy, deeply lonely Hollywood success story, while Brydon was the quietly contented family man. At the conclusion of their road trip around the finer eating establishments of northern England, Coogan returned to an empty high-rise apartment with glittering views of London, while Brydon went home to a more modest brick house and the embrace of his wife and child.

The Trip to Italy has no such conclusion, even as it reconstitutes the premise of the first film as best it can, giving Brydon and Coogan the same cushy assignment for the Observer: an all-expenses-paid driving tour of six destinations that are both visually and gastronomically jaw-dropping. Only this time, the distinctions between the two characters—exaggerated versions of their real-life selves—have blurred. Brydon, tired of the affability of his public persona, drinks and carouses on the beach with a blonde expat while Coogan, still melancholy but newly sober, reads Byron in bed and tries to Skype with his son. Continue reading →

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Valentine’s Day is this weekend. Perhaps you and your date are going out to dinner or something else. Maybe you’re staying inside. If so, allow me to recommend a movie to you for date night: Obvious Child. It’s a comedy about abortion.

It’s also pretty great and fairly perfect for a romantic night in. Seriously. Continue reading →

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It’s taken me forever to see Birdman. This happens when you live in an area that does not have a super robust arts community.

So let me just say this: Birdman is easily my favorite movie of all of 2014. In fact, it might be one of my favorite movies of all time. I won’t give you a long and drawn out review, that’s because I want you to rush out and see this movie now.

We’ve seen the long-take trick before, perhaps most notably in Hitchcock’s 1948 chamber thriller Rope, which masked five of its 10 cuts by slinking in close to its cast. But in Birdman, the effect’s entirely different. Working with the great cinematographer Emmanuel Lubezki, director Alejandro González Iñárritu turns the film into a high-wire act – live, unpredictable, light as air, yet also fatalistically locked on course. While it’s going on, you’re glued to the impossibility of what you’re seeing. Once it’s over, you can’t believe what you saw.

Yet Birdman isn’t a piece of empty showmanship. It’s a piece about empty showmanship, and its unhinged premise – a fairground-mirror image of the career of its leading man (Michael Keaton), who starred in Tim Burton’s two mega-grossing Batman films then quit the franchise on principle – couldn’t have been told in a smarter way. It’s a beautiful, moving, captivating film.

Treat yourself now: either go see it in a theater or watch it digitally (since it’s now available). It’s worth the money. You’ll thank me.

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A crew of office drones from Nowheresville reenact Lord of the Flies in Rob Meltzer’s Welcome to the Jungle, a picture billed as Jean-Claude Van Damme’s first comedy. That description is arguable on two fronts: it undervalues the laugh-generating capability of many of JCVD’s ostensibly serious outings, while grossly overestimating the comedic value here. Continue reading →

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Stanley Kramer’s epic 1963 comedy It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World has a complicated, contradictory legacy. During the 51 years since its initial release, the ultimate ensemble comedy has aired in a seemingly constant loop on television. Homages to the film include 1979’s Scavenger Hunt, 1987’s Million Dollar Mystery, and 2001’s Rat Race, all of which owe so much to Mad World, they border on unofficial remakes.

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If there is such a thing as a meta-sequel, then this flagrantly silly and self-aware follow-up to 21 Jump Street is it. How so? Because 22 Jump Street explodes the whole concept of franchising and then studies the shards to figure out why audiences are always panting to see the same damn thing over and over.

My apologies. I’m not going to make a term paper out of a throwaway comedy. 22 Jump Street is damn funny. It laughs at its own dumb logic and invites us in on the fun.

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A quick note: Sony pulling The Interview is a cowardly move and a strike against free speech.

Would Charles Dickens have written the movie Scrooge? No. Would he have written The Muppet Christmas Carol? Good lord no, and stab your eyes for even suggesting as such. Truth told, he probably would have written something like Scrooged, an 80s, greed-isn’t-good update of the Dickens classic. The wittiest satire of television since Network, Scrooged gives us Frank Cross, the “youngest president in the history of television,” a man who also happens to be the completely maniacal head of the IBC TV network. IBC’s holiday programming runs toward action flicks like The Night the Reindeer Died and cheesy variety shows like Bob Goulet’s Old-Fashioned Cajun Christmas. But Frank’s pièce de résistance is Scrooge, a live-from-around-the-world Christmas Eve special, featuring Buddy Hackett as the old skinflint, Mary Lou Retton as Tiny Tim, and a bevy of scantily clad, oh-so 80s Solid Gold Dancers.

“We’ll own Christmas,” Frank announces gleefully.

But will it own your heart? Hit the cut, true believers, to find out the answer to that question, along with why it’s the second of three traditional Christmas-time movies for me. Continue reading →

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Charlie McDowell’s The One I Love (TOIL) is a difficult movie. Well, it’s not necessarily difficult because of its quality. The movie is a true pleasure to watch, which is all the more surprising given it’s McDowell’s debut directorial feature. No, it’s difficult because discussing it can so easily lead to spoiling the film.